Carlos Galán

Chef Carlos Galán studied gastronomy at Universidad Anáhuac in Oaxaca. After working at Casa Oaxaca, the restaurant led by Chef Alejandro Ruiz, he earned his mentor’s trust and went on to serve as his head chef for three years.

For the past 12 years, Chef Carlos has led the kitchen at Guzina Oaxaca in Polanco, Mexico City. The restaurant was consecutively featured in the Michelin Guide in 2024, 2025, and 2026, and has also been recognized for a decade as one of the country’s 250 best restaurants by the Guía México Gastronómico, published by Culinaria Mexicana.

The restaurant has also ranked among the top 10 restaurants in Mexico three times according to La Liste, one of the world’s most prominent French culinary rankings.

Carlos Galán also currently leads the kitchen at Xilote, a new restaurant in Polanco, Mexico City, inspired by the importance of corn in Mexican gastronomy. The restaurant was recognized as one of the Best New Openings of 2025 by Gourmet de México magazine. Xilote also received a special mention at the international Firenze Entremuros Awards in the Hospitality Architecture and Interior Design category.

Growing up in an Oaxacan community where agricultural production was primarily intended for self consumption, Carlos Omar Galán Figueroa took on responsibilities from an early age, such as herding the family’s sheep, gathering squash from the fields, and going to the river to provide water for his animals. He carried out these tasks alongside the person he admires most: his grandfather, Severino Galán, from whom he learned much of what continues to inspire his cooking today.

Carlos remembers learning to make tortillas with his grandmother when he was just 10 years old. He also regularly helped his grandfather prepare barbacoa and bake bread for the town festival in San Miguel Peras, in Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur region. There, he grew up learning to cultivate and harvest corn, squash, quelites (wild edible greens), beans, and, of course, pears and apples.

Drawing on his life experiences, Chef Galán believes that truly understanding and working in a professional kitchen requires dedication from the ground up, from washing dishes and scrubbing floors to paying attention to every detail when creating dishes that combine traditional and contemporary techniques. For him, cooking is a way to honor the memory of those who taught us everything we know and to preserve a culinary heritage as vast and profound as that of Mexico.